Though if you tried the same technique with a different prospect, you might not get the same response.

No, the truth is that you can learn better lessons when things go wrong, because you can identify the rationale that caused you to make the mistake and you can ensure you put in strategies so it doesn’t happen again.

An old boss of mine said to me, ‘Fail often. At least I know you’re trying. But make sure you learn your lessons well. I’d rather that than you try nothing in case you fail.’

I’ve always remembered that, as it has given me the confidence to try out things that I might not have done before.

If I apply the idea that you should learn from failures, it guarantees I won’t go down the wrong road twice.

Michael Jordan once said, ‘You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take’.

By taking the shot, missing, re-aligning, matching up, learning from what went wrong and applying those lessons, we stand a much better chance of hitting the next shot successfully.

Applying that dogma to sales, we see lots of failures magnified against the backdrop of poor results and we think we will never get better.

On the contrary, if we examine the way things are done and make sure they don’t get repeated in the same way, we can’t help but get better and aim higher.